The idea that pesticides are necessary to feed the world’s fast-growing population is ‘inaccurate and misleading’ a UN report has warned.

The document which is expected to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council this week strongly denounced the ‘aggressive promotion’ of pesticides by the industry as experts found the chemicals had ‘catastrophic impacts on the environment – human health and society as a whole’.

The authors of the report said the impact of pesticides on human health – access to food and the environment have been exacerbated by corporations’ ‘systematic denial’ ‘aggressive unethical marketing tactics”’and by having ‘obstructed reforms and paralysed global pesticide restrictions globally’.

Lobbyists have often defended pesticides as being necessary to increase yields as the world is facing threats of climate change impact.But the report debunks this idea.